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Hawthorn Press - Nancy Mellon

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112 pages

English

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Publié par	Hawthorn Press
Date de parution	01 janvier 0001
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781907359606
Langue	English

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Storytelling with Children
Storytelling with Children

Nancy Mellon
Foreword by Thomas Moore
Storytelling with Children © 2000 Nancy Mellon
Nancy Mellon is hereby identified as author of this work in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988. She asserts and gives notice of her moral right under this Act.
Published by Hawthorn Press, Hawthorn House, 1 Lansdown Lane, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 1BJ, UK
Tel: (01453) 757040 Fax: (01453) 751138
E-mail: info@hawthornpress.com
www.hawthornpress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means (electronic or mechanical, through reprography, digital transmission, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Permission granted to quote from:
Louise MacNeice Collected Poems, Faber and Faber
Illustrations by Marije Rowling
Cover illustration by Helen Ward
Cover Design by Lucy Guenot, Stroud, Gloucestershire
Typesetting by Great White Designs, Stroud, Gloucestershire
Printed in the UK by Berforts Information Press, Oxford, 2013
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data applied for
ISBN 978-1-907359-26-2
ePub ISBN 978-1-907359-60-6
Mobi ISBN 978-1-907359-60-6
This book is lovingly dedicated to Hugh (Brother Blue) and Ruth Hill, close friends of the Eternal Storyteller, and to aspiring storytellers everywhere .
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
1.
Weaving a Storyteller’s Mantle

What is a Storyteller?

Creating Silence

Listening

Rhythmic Story Weaving

Voices: Spinning Gold

Afterwards
2.
The Storyteller’s Trove of Treasure: Memory and Imagination

Memory - The Story of What Happened Today

Bringing Your Personal & Family Stories to Life

Imagination - Spontaneous Storytelling
3.
A Storyteller’s Trove of Treasure: Play

Story Frames

Ways to Learn Stories by Heart

Creating Play

Transforming Well-known Stories

Sounding the Senses

Story and Song

Tales with Hands and Feet

Drawing and Painting

Board Games

Dancing a Story

Play-acting

Embroider and Sew

Story Aprons
4.
Stories for Growth and Change

Stories for Unborn Children

The Earliest Years

Together and Alone: All are One

Stories Nurture Healthy Development

Opposition

Stories and Moral Development

Signposts on the Way

Truth or Deception

Stories as Birthday Gifts

Death and Transformation

Moving

Storytelling in Sickness and Recuperation
5 .
Stories through the Seasons

Autumn Stories

Winter Stories: Storytelling with the Stars

Spring Stories

Summer Stories

Storytelling with the Moon
6.
Stories: Weaving Family and Community
Acknowledgments
Resources for each chapter
Foreword
by Thomas Moore
Five years ago I began telling stories to my two children in the half-hour before they went to sleep. I didn’t do this on principle or theory. It just happened. Many of the stories have become quite long with episodes complete in themselves told over months and even years. They often begin with a formula and contain common structural elements. The same characters appear, and new faces show themselves. For example, the series about King Francis and Queen Maeve frequently begins with King Francis waking early in the morning and going to the balcony just off his bedroom to look over his kingdom. Everything is usually still and beautiful except one little anomaly that usually appears faintly on the horizon.
Every night I ask my children which story they’d like to hear. They say ‘King Francis’ or ‘Ananda Coomeraswamy’ or ‘Blue Foot.’ Sometimes they tell me what they want to have in the story, but I usually tell them that I can’t force the characters or the story to do what I want. I listen to the story being offered to us as much as they do.
I’ve learned a great deal over the years from this storytelling. I’ve discovered the beauty of repetition and formula, the power of a character to become a person in our field of relationships, and the arc a good story covers whether it is long or short. First I almost always take a moment of silence to let the evening’s story be born and show itself in the sketchiest form. I’ve learned to trust that a story will take form and complete itself if I’m open to inspiration.
The few friends who know about this storytelling tell me how good it is for the children, but I do not think of it in those terms. It’s pure pleasure, and it’s something the children and I have discovered that we can do with each other. Many an evening I’m grateful that even when the story doesn’t pass muster in my judgment, they are happy and appreciative. When a story is done, I hear them stir from their deep attention and shift into a different world to prepare for sleep. The sounds of that moment are the sweetest music in my life. Very rarely do the children fall asleep while the story is being told, although when they do I am happy for that.
I know firsthand how precious and pleasurable family storytelling can be. I want to underscore the point that this tradition in our family simply sprang into being. I didn’t initiate it out of any philosophy of education or upbringing. I do happen to have many ideas and theories about stories, but somehow they have been involved only unconsciously.
And so I’m delighted with this new book by Nancy Mellon on storytelling for parents. She, too, has many ideas but she presents them without any annoying theory. She can appreciate many variations in the practice and the mode of stores told. She helps articulate what is possible by letting us know what in fact is done in families. At the same time she helps us see how family stories can have classic themes and forms. She understands the importance of voice and articulation, but she doesn’t offer rules.
I think her book will give parents guidance and courage to trust their imaginations and to explore certain simple structural motifs common to great stories and the simple ones that arrive on a parent’s lips on an ordinary evening. The last thing we parents need is a rule book for storytelling. What we can use is some gentle encouragement to adopt the persona of storyteller. I appreciate Nancy Mellon’s way of giving us good ideas without making us feel that we are now bound to certain expectations of what is right and proper. Once the pleasure and personal inventiveness leave the process, we’ve lost the heart and soul of this kind of storytelling.
The parent who is a storyteller enters a tradition that looks simple but is actually complex and serious. Family storytelling is more than kid’s stuff. Its pleasures are fully adult for the storyteller. All of this Nancy Mellon describes with a good storyteller’s sensitivity. She also mentions the obstacles that parents run into as they try to tell stories. Sometimes, I admit, I’m afraid that my stories won’t seem good enough, but that’s the writer and academic in me raising voices of unnecessary caution.
At the deepest level of experience, our lives are made up of story fragments and images in search of a coherent narrative. We find meaning in those stories. The deeper we go into them, the deeper the place from which we live. It follows, I would say, that storytelling is the primary task of the parent. Making stories honest, attractive and appropriate for children is an inviting task. Reading stories has its extraordinary pleasures and value, but ‘making up’ stories – letting them come to you – is the best kind of storytelling I know.
When I do step back and think about my practice of family storytelling, one hope I have for my children is that they are discovering how to be in this life with imagination. The kingdom of King Francis and Queen Maeve and the curiosity shop of Ananda Coomeraswamy are real. They’re imaginary, but to me the imaginary is in many ways more vital than so-called ‘reality’ – life deprived of imagination. Let Nancy Mellon teach you to be a storyteller and a discoverer, for you and your children, of worlds that truly make a difference.
Introduction
It is a blessing to have a wise and dedicated storyteller in the family, and it is never too early or too late to become one.
For countless generations storytelling has provided vision and consolation, inspiration and instruction; yet our present times demand new approaches and dedication to this ancient art. This book can help you discover why and how to become a family storyteller, and to transform any reluctance you have, so that storytelling may thrive in your life with your children.
Although children often show us our shortcomings, as we devote ourselves to them they can inspire us to deeds we never thought possible. They learn from us to tap into the hidden riches of their memories and imaginations as we grow with them, in order to fulfill their needs.
Many parents and other adults are surprised at first that young children want them to make up stories out of themselves. Yet it does not take long to realize how meeting their need for stories creates a sense of warmth, family and community. This book has been written to stimulate your direct experience of the wise and benevolent creative forces which, however dormant they may be, live within every one of us. Computer stories, television, and even printed books are chilly substitutes for closeness with fully present adults who are spinning whole tales out of their own hearts and souls. Warmly creative adults inspire the same qualities in the children around them.
Amidst the ingenious cacophony of electronic inventions, the wise old art of storytelling is re-awakening with conscious intention. Many parents and grandparents feel a growing need to transform themselves into warm-hearted, fully present storytellers. As they tell their first stories to their children or grandchildren, or gather into